Long ago and far away

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The president had invited a few of us reporters over for a
Christmas drink. I grabbed the yellow streetcar in
Georgetown, and hopped off at Pennsylvania Avenue and
17th Street. Cutting through the Executive Office Building and
across the White House lawn, I joked with the ceremonial
guard at the West Wing door and went in. "Hey Millie,
where's the boss?" Millie told me to follow the sound of gun
shots: "He's out on the veranda trying out his new shotgun the
Boy Scouts gave him."

Taking a short cut through the Oval Office, I saw the
president happily plunking away at copies of last years'
federal budget pamphlet. Melbourn Sedgewick, the
president's martini-drinking press secretary, was leaning
against one of the veranda's white pillars. "The president likes
a slim target - something he can blow away. He tried using
the collected columns of Walter Lippman -but they were
impenetrable. The Office of the Budget suggested last year's
budget - at 50 pages, it fits the bill perfectly, no thanks to
the president. If the appropriations committees were'nt so
tight-fisted, we could have plumped up that budget pamphlet
into a fat book in no time. But those Scrooges wouldn't even
fund a one-lane bridge over the stream near the president's
summer house. I'll give it to them, though, they won't spend
the people's money on bridges for there own home towns,
either."

Where else, but in America, could a fella wander in to see
the president without having to go through high iron gates and
gun-totting guards. And where else could gun shots from the
Executive Mansion not give rise to alarm? Earlier in the day, a
few of us had asked Sedgewick whether the president was
worried about the state of underprivileged kids at Christmas
time. "Not at all, they can't vote," he said, deadpan. "But
those overstuffed farmers will desert the president in a
moment if we don't keep the subsidies flowing."

Of course, none of us reported Sedgewick's irreverent
words, they might be taken the wrong way by the public, and
embarrass the president. Although I don't think any of the
reporters there actually voted for him, it would break down
the working relationship with the president if we reported
every little rumor and snide comment made by him or his
staff. Someday, there may be issues of war and peace facing
the country, and it will be important for the president to be
able to trust us reporters covering him. If we take cheap
shots on the little things, he wouldn't be able to trust our
judgment on the big issues - and then we couldn't do our
job informing the public on the things that matter.

"Millie, I'm out of birdshot" bellowed the president.
"Wake up the national security adviser and ask him if he can
run down some extra cartridges out at Fort McNair. He
might as well earn his keep." Leading us reporters downstairs
into the library, the president announced that, before he could
join us, he wanted to call the German chancellor to wish him
Merry Christmas. "But, gentlemen, the bar is open - help
yourselves."

Morrie Downs, the reporter for the New York Times, lit
up a fat cigar and sat contentedly with a large glass of
bourbon. "I don't give a tinker's dam for all that New Yorker
artsy stuff. I'll leave that to the social page. But I can drink the
president's bourbon all day and still report the hard policy
facts against the president - even if it makes him bleed. And
I'll tell you something else, the president wouldn't have it any
other way. I was with him when he was shooting tigers in the
Punjab. He told me I could punch him in the nose when he
deserved it, just don't knife him in the back. That's pretty
good advice for any reporter."

After shooting billiards with the president upstairs in the
Red Room, where he had his favorite table set-up, I headed
home. We live down by the Pentagon building - safest place
in the world, I reckon. On the way home I stopped off at the
Christmas tree lot. I splurged, a little. Bought a beautiful, fat 6
foot tree - even though it cost $1.50.

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